


sins cannot be undone

by isadorator



Series: i hope your soul is changing [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Aftermath, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Angst with a Happy Ending, Forgiveness, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Kinda, Recovery, post-identity reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-11
Updated: 2016-06-11
Packaged: 2018-07-14 11:37:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7169459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isadorator/pseuds/isadorator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The good guys win, the bad guy goes to jail, and Adrien Agreste is left to pick up the pieces.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sins cannot be undone

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this all in one sitting last night because this is something I've been wondering about: how Gabriel is going to be redeemed, if at all, after he learned who Chat Noir is and _still continued_ to attack him. Also I really, really needed the emotional catharsis, ha... ha........
> 
> Forgiveness is a concept I struggle with _constantly_ , especially now that it's Ramadan. But, I think it's important to remember that it's a _choice_. One you make for _yourself_. To move past the things that haunt you and try rebuilding around the scars left behind.
> 
> It's okay to forgive past sins. It's okay if you never do. But forgiveness is meaningless, if you don't choose it.

Adrien doesn't see Hawk Moth's defeat. Not personally. He only witnesses the aftermath, when Tikki's magic brings Chat Noir back to life.

He sees Ladybug hovering over him, his head cradled in her lap. He sees his lady, his amazing, incredible lady, holding Hawk Moth's Miraculous in her hand. He sees her look down at him with desperate worry, even though they've _won_.

Then Chat Noir turns his head. He sees Sabrina's father guide _his_ into the back of a police car.

"I'm sorry, Chat," Ladybug says.

Victory _always_ has a cost.

  


* * *

  


Resurrection comes with consequences as well. Mainly, Chat Noir can't stand by himself, legs feeling weak and shaky as a newborn kitten's.

He'd make a joke about losing one of his nine lives, but... there's still a phantom ache, radiating from his torso. Right in the place where Hawk Moth's sword cane slipped between his ribs.

Ladybug takes him back to his room.

"Adrien..." she says as she lays him out on his bed. Her transformation releases in a shower of pink sparkles. Marinette looks at him, sad and serious and _worried_ and Chat _hates_ it. "I'm sorry, I'm _so_ sorry, this is..." She bites her lip as Tikki flies over to sit on her shoulder.

Damn it, even _Tikki_ is looking at him with concern.

Chat's first instinct is to reassure them, say that he's fine, he'd be alright. But the ache is still there, throbbing viciously under his skin.

( _Did he ever love you?_ )

"Claws in," he says instead, closes his eyes as Plagg's magic rushes back into the ring, reforming into his kwami. Plagg immediately plasters himself to Adrien's face.

"YOU DUMB KID DON'T YOU EVER PULL A STUPID STUNT LIKE THAT AGAIN," Plagg howls. Exhausted in every way possible, Adrien doesn't have the energy to do more than blink in surprise.

"Won't have to," he says dully.

  


* * *

  


Ladybug is about to leave, halfway through launching her yoyo, when she turns around. " _You can stay with me!_ Un... until things get... um. Sorted out."

Adrien thinks about it. Thinks about her warm home and her cozy room and her loving parents.

Thinks about her father, friendly and affectionate and _there_ for his daughter.

Pressing a hand to his middle, Adrien shakes his head.

  


* * *

  


Nathalie arrives half an hour later, lawyer in tow.

"M. Agreste has been arrested," she says promptly. "We are to begin the process for your emancipation immediately."

" _What?!_ "

Nathalie tactfully ignores Adrien's outburst. "You're old enough and these types of allegations can be dragged out in court for _years_. It would be best if you gained control of your trust fund and focus instead on completing your education."

The lawyer steps forward, already brandishing a pile of paperwork, but Adrien stops them with a raised hand.

"Did..." Adrien swallows. His throat feels tight as he remembers the look on Hawk Moth's face, as Chat Noir flung himself between Ladybug and the blade that threatened her. "Did my father tell you to do this?"

"He made his wishes very clear," Nathalie says.

The ghost of the sword slowly twists into him as he signs page after page after page.

  


* * *

  


Adrien doesn't go to school the next day, knowing what the news all over France will be. He doesn't visit the Ladyblog, knowing what the latest posts will be about. He doesn't leave the house, knowing half of Paris is outside his gates. He doesn't answer his friends' texts, knowing their unconditional concern would be too... too _much_.

He climbs the walls. He grunts at Plagg. He looks through photos of his mother. When the pain in his chest scrapes away something important, something he probably needs, Adrien goes down to his father's office and gets Plagg to break into the hidden safe.

There's another Miraculous in it.

Of course there is.

  


* * *

  


The next day, Nino fights through the crowds of reporters and picketers to get to his front door, Marinette and Alya not far behind him.

"We have your notes for class," Nino says, when they're all inside. His words echo in the quiet of the mansion.

Adrien remembers standing here in the lobby with Nino, as his father rejected the first friend he made by himself. His father ridiculed Nino, kicked him out, and Adrien felt so embarrassed.

No. Ashamed. Because Nino deserves better than to be treated like... like...

When his phantom wound gapes, bitterness bleeds out.

"My father akumatized you," Adrien says and Nino stills. "He hurt you."

Adrien's eyes skip to Alya and the death grip she has on her phone. They settle on Marinette—his princess, his lady, his _life_ —and he remembers how pale she went, when Hawk Moth caught her off guard that last, crucial moment.

"He hurt all of you," he finishes in a whisper. The silence, familiar and empty, is broken by Alya.

"He hurt you too," she says.

Adrien laughs, watery and hitched and just on the edge of hysterical.

Trust Alya to speak the truth.

  


* * *

  


Chloé comes by with Sabrina later, furious that Adrien blew off their shopping date. Annoyed, too, that he wasn't coming to school after all the trouble _she_ went through to convince him to make a break for it, _honestly_ Adrikins.

The day after that, Adrien sneaks past the crowd outside his house and drags himself to school, Plagg tucked into his shirt. For some reason, his kwami seems to draw off the worst of the leftover pain.

Class is tense, but not as bad as he thought it would be.

Max makes an off-hand remark about how this explained why Adrien was a statistical anomaly and never got akumatized. Alix elbows him. Ivan gives him a fist bump of solidarity.

Marinette holds his hand during lunch.

  


* * *

  


A week later, Adrien lifts the receiver off the hook. He faces his father through the bulletproof glass of the prison's visiting booth.

"Why did you do it?" Adrien asks. His voice is as flat and numb as he feels. Only Plagg huddling against his chest helps him remember that he's alive, that he's here.

"I did it for you. For our family," his father tells him.

Adrien _aches_. The lingering pain of Hawk Moth's misaimed attack, the grief of Gabriel Agreste's betrayal—they both claw through him. With every jagged cut, he's reminded that, yes, he's alive now.

But, for a while, he wasn't.

Resolve shattered, Adrien puts the receiver back. He doesn't look back ( _can't look back can't can't can't_ ) as he leaves.

  


* * *

  


Sitting at Marinette's desk, Adrien brushes another layer of papier-mâché on her latest project while he waits for her. He ignores the newspaper headlines speculating about him. About his father.

Tikki and Plagg hover over him, watching as he rubs the spot between his ribs.

"There's no scar," Adrien says, carefully covering 'GABRIEL STOCK PLUMMETS' with an editorial cartoon mocking Mayor Bourgeois' latest scandal.

"There wouldn't be," Tikki says, with all the certainty of a millennia old being.

Adrien puts down his brush. The black-and-white image of his father stares out at him. It's not his mug shot this time, but the photo from the company's website.

"Is it ever going to stop hurting?" Adrien asks. Plagg and Tikki exchange a look.

"Probably not," Plagg answers bluntly. "You just gotta accept it. Learn to be happy _anyway_."

  


* * *

  


Adrien signs his name and the officer at the desk buzzes him through.

His father sits at the visiting booth. His hair is limp and bags stretch deep under his eyes.

He's old, older than Adrien has ever seen him, and maybe there's a hint of pity growing beneath the pain.

( _Did he ever love you?_ )

Adrien doesn't know. He's never known what his father is thinking.

But... he's never let that stop him from trying. Not before.

He picks up the receiver.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [And You Caused It](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8457883) by [dear_chaton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dear_chaton/pseuds/dear_chaton)
  * [tell the survivors (the help is on the way remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11614890) by [isadorator](https://archiveofourown.org/users/isadorator/pseuds/isadorator)




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